Justin Siegel, Ph.D.

The primary thrust of my research is to develop new tools and the knowledge necessary to rapidly and reliably discover novel enzyme catalysts. The projects selected have a synergy between tool & knowledge development, education, and societal impact. Research within the lab generally is focused around the use and development of computational modeling tools to evaluate how changes to a protein sequence, and therefore structure, results in a modulation of function. As members of the Rosetta Commons the majority of the modeling work carried out in the lab is done within the Rosetta Molecular Modeling Suite. We follow up the in silico modeling through in vitro studies leveraging recent breakthroughs from the field of synthetic biology to experimentally evaluate the properties of the designed proteins. On occasion we conduct in vivo studies of how the engineered proteins work within living organisms, however these studies are often done in collaboration with other groups. To date we have discovered and engineered enzymes to treat celiac disease, fight anthrax infections, catalyze novel chemistry never before observed in nature, produce high value chemicals, fixate carbon dioxide, and modulate the properties of various foods we eat.